Sharjah
At least one in nine people in the world do not have access to clean water, as stated by water.org. And yet we waste so much water on a daily basis.
I have been collecting plastic bottles for recycling for a few years and have now decided to collect leftover water, too. In two weeks, I collect approximately 500 bottles. I have noticed that these bottles usually have water in them, too. It is of utmost shock how people don’t value the importance of water.
In many cases, water comes with a meal, and so people tend to misuse it by drinking one sip and discarding the rest of the bottle. In developing countries, as much as 80 per cent of illnesses are linked to poor water and sanitation conditions, as stated by The Water Project. The importance of water should be understood in places where there is no scarcity as well.
So, I decided to collect all the leftover water from these bottles and use it to water the plants in my apartment’s balcony. If others followed the same process, we could save a lot of water from being wasted.
I make it a point to collect plastic bottles from most of the events I attend and tell the staff of the hotel to collect these bottles. My father’s colleagues dispose their water bottles in a separate bag, too, so that I can recycle them on a weekly basis.
— The reader is a pupil based in Sharjah.
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